LEEDS AND GRENVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTE ACT (CONTINUED)
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AMENDMENT ACT
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AMENDMENT ACT
LEEDS AND GRENVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTE ACT (CONCLUDED)
LEEDS AND GRENVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTE ACT
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
LEEDS AND GRENVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTE ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 124, An Act respecting the Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education and Teachers Dispute.
On motion by Mr. Martel, the debate was adjourned.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Wells moved second reading of Bill 126, An Act to amend the Executive Council Act.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I think this bill is fairly self-explanatory. It is a bill which changes the annual salaries for ministers with portfolio, for the prime minister of this province, for ministers without portfolio and for parliamentary assistants. The changes suggested in here are roughly the equivalent percentage to that which members of the public service of this province, particularly in the senior management categories, have been granted over the last several months.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the House leader a question. It seems to me that a couple of years ago when we were going through this exercise there was an agreement that there would be a certain level between members of the cabinet and the ordinary member of the Legislature. There was an agreement that there would be a ceiling on that and, if there were to be any increases, those increases would go to the ordinary member or the noncabinet member of the House and the differential between the cabinet and the ordinary member would be maintained at that level.
Since apparently that is not being followed here, I wonder if the House leader would comment on whether he still feels that that should be valid and that perhaps the differential we are passing here tonight should be the differential between the two.
The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Reid, as you can appreciate, we are not in question period, but I am sure the minister will take down your remarks and possibly make reference to them in his closing statement.
Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in opposition to the bill, partly on the grounds that a number of people have the title of parliamentary assistant, for example, and are involved in the executive council. As a new member here and as a member of the opposition, I do not believe that they are making any greater contribution to this House than I or my colleagues on this side of the House are. I think some of them are not earning the extra money that is awarded to them. I find that it is just a way to enable the government to pad the coffers of the government party without actually justifying it on the basis of work load.
I also do not feel that the leader of the third party should have an increase over and above the increases awarded to the government and the opposition side. I think it is an indication of this government's intention to prop up the third party in an effort to use the old divide-and-conquer philosophy.
For those reasons I will vote against the bill.
The Deputy Speaker: Is there any other member who would like to participate in this debate? Mr. Wells then.
Hon. Mr. Snow: Can I speak?
Hon. Mr. Wells: No, you cannot speak.
Mr. Speaker, in answer to the comments regarding the leader of the third party, we are in effect following a recommendation of the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses. In their recommendations they suggested that there be some additional remuneration for the leader of the third party. That is not in this bill; that is in the next bill. This bill deals only with the Premier (Mr. Davis), ministers with or without portfolio and parliamentary assistants.
In answer to the question from the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), I am not aware of any percentage differential that was ever agreed upon. I do not know whether that might or might not be a good idea. I certainly support something that I know he supports, which is better basic remuneration for members of this Legislature. I think that is going to be put into practice in the next bill which we are going to debate in a few minutes. It recognizes that a basic increase in the salary and expense allowance for members of this Legislature is necessary.
I just want to point out again -- and it may not make any difference, but I think it must be remembered -- that the members of the executive council and the parliamentary assistants who accept --
Mr. Conway: The ones who are allowed to answer questions.
Hon. Mr. Wells: They are not allowed to answer questions but, as my friend knows, they do carry legislation here. As part of the responsibility of accepting those additional responsibilities, those particular members are bound by a set of conflict-of-interest requirements that do not apply to the other members of this House.
Mr. T. P. Reid: I will trade you.
Hon. Mr. Wells: The member says he will trade me. I would suggest that the other members of this House, those who do not hold any of these responsibilities, might like to look at whether they should be bound by the same kind of requirements. Those requirements are that one cannot be a partner in or run one's own business, buy or sell stock on the stock market directly, buy or sell land or do a variety of things. These limit one's activities in a business sense, for which it can be argued that, along with one's responsibility, one should not be asked to accept a basic salary that is not at least somewhere in keeping with the job one is doing. Whether that is of any interest to members of the House, I think it needs to be said again.
8:10 p.m.
Mr. Conway: The less said the better. It gets sillier as it goes on.
Hon. Mr. Wells: I submit to my friend that it does not get sillier as it goes on.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: You have been silly since March 19.
Mr. Conway: There are 21 parliamentary assistants running around.
Hon. Mr. Wells: We probably do not have as many parliamentary secretaries as they have at Ottawa. Whether that makes it right or wrong is neither here nor there. The position of parliamentary assistant is helpful to the ministers. These ladies and gentlemen perform a function in the whole system and in this House.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for third reading.
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Wells moved second reading of Bill 127, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated that one of the provisions of this bill is the change of remuneration for the leader of the third party. This is in keeping with the recommendation of the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses. The other provision is the change in the expense allowance, an increase which was not recommended by the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses, but which I think is necessary at this time in keeping with the duties, responsibilities and obligations that the members of this Legislature face.
Although we are not changing this bill at this time and are still leaving the provision which will allow the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses to carry out its annual review, we are considering some other mechanism for a more full review of members' basic salary over the next four or five months in preparation for the next annual review in a way that could take into account some of the things members of this House at various times have spoken to me about concerning that basic salary.
I believe, as many members have told me -- and the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) has already enunciated it here tonight -- that this is an important job in the democratic process in this province and members of this Legislature should be paid a decent salary and be remunerated for their expenses.
I would be happy to have a thorough comparison and review made of the kind of remuneration we receive and what would be an appropriate level for future remuneration. It would be by some kind of impartial commission or some kind of impartial review different from the one which we have been using for the last three years.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a brief comment. While I certainly support the legislation, I suggest to the government House leader that some of us on this side and some on his own side, I believe, do have some problems with the expense-free allowance. We would feel a little more honest with our constituents if that $10,000 proposed in this legislation were all to be translated into taxable income. I would have no problem justifying that to the voters of my riding and I suggest most members of the Legislature would likewise have no problem.
If we were to set up an independent commission or other organization, I would hope that in future years we should not be moving so much to increase the tax-free allowance which, as I am sure the government House leader knows, is something that is not as important now that we have a number of other means, through accommodation allowances, more generous air fare and more generous expenses in a number of areas such as constituency travel -- and perhaps rightly so. The day of the tax-free allowance may well be past us.
Perhaps we should be totally open and honest about our salaries and simply make it all taxable income. I would have no problem in doing so and I suggest the majority of the members would not. Perhaps we would be a little more honest if we were to do so.
Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make one point on an inequity I see. I am sure there are others. It is interesting to me that the government whip gets his salary for being a member and gets his salary for being a minister without portfolio. He gets his $8,900 for being whip, gets his staff, gets a beautiful office, gets his car and all the rest of those things that come with being a cabinet minister.
Yet on the other side of the floor, where we also have whips, we do not get staff to assist ourselves and we do not get the extra salary they get over there. While we do not have as many members to whip into the House there is some basic work associated with being a whip. That is an obvious inequity that should be looked at, whether it is strictly in the way of salary or also at providing some staffing to assist the whips of these parties so they can also do the constituency work and the critics work that is very important for a member of the Legislature.
Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate the comments of my colleague the member for Windsor-Sandwich. I know it is probably not a popular position on any side of the House, but I feel the decision by the government to exceed the recommendations of the commission in terms of the expense allowance is unwarranted and extravagant.
I find it hard to believe we need a $2,000-expense allowance rate over and above what has been previously accorded when we have some members, including members on the government side, who not only collect their expense allowances and salaries, but also up to $18,000 in expense allowance, mileage and accommodation. That is over and above the allowance which we allegedly need in the new changes.
I would prefer to see it moved to a taxable system. I think the salary we are at present receiving is not accurately reflected in the taxable and nontaxable package. I think it would be more honest to the taxpayers if we had a totally taxable package that would illustrate what kind of money we were receiving. I will be voting against it.
Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I was not going to enter the discussion tonight because I feel the increases provided in the bill are modest, quite reasonable and consistent. My reason for intervening in the debate is the comment made by the member for Windsor-Sandwich, reiterated by his colleague the member for Hamilton Centre, that there is something dishonest reflected in the income we are receiving in this assembly.
One can have it two ways. One can have it the traditional way, which has always provided for a nontaxable element with respect to the expenses incurred by members of the assembly and which is clearly recognized in the income tax laws of the country for many years.
8:20 p.m.
Let me make it very clear. I object to any suggestion that any number of dollars I am receiving in any form whatsoever is dishonest or lacking in some element of honesty. We are talking about a fundamental principle which has been engrained in the Income Tax Act of Canada since 1916, when the original Income Tax Act was introduced into the country and in 1917 with the Income War Tax Act. It applies at all levels of government. If we want to change that, then we have to think very carefully about the reasons for making the change.
Let me also explain as best I can that we are not employees. The provisions of the Income Tax Act that we have talked about would indicate that somehow or other we are in somebody's employ. We are not. Under the Income Tax Act, it is very clear that the distinctions which could be made can be made, because one of the things which it says is that the income that is taxable shall be the income from an office or employment.
I have always held the position that we fall within that area. We hold an office. We are elected members of the assembly. We are not employed by the government; we are not employed by the civil service. We are not independent businessmen. We hold an office. I think the point is a valid point and that the question must be directed towards this matter. I would hope that the House leader finally would indicate what has been said on other occasions in the House over the years, and that we should look very carefully at the question of the definition of an office under the Income Tax Act of Canada, which is basically the statute we are talking about. We should make specific provision if we are going to go to a fully taxable system. I happen to believe that would be the appropriate road for us to take.
The traditional method no longer makes any sense. I am not going into the mathematics of what the calculations would be, but I am simply saying that if the Income Tax Act were amended to provide that the income from an office permitted each individual member to claim against the income from his office such expenses as under the Income Tax Act would be allowable, then we would do a lot to remedy the seeming inequity of members of the assembly receiving dollars which they treat as income, but which in fact are called a nontaxable allowance.
I do not want to go on at any great length. I am not talking about the provision in the Legislative Assembly Act for executive assistants or for legislative assistants, nor am I talking about provisions that permit us to have constituency offices and constituency assistants. I am not talking about that kind of expense. I am talking about the number of dollars which are discretionary to the member as to whether or not he will use them or not use them for expense purposes, but could treat them for his own personal purposes.
I think there is an anomaly in this day and age in that situation, but we cannot deal with it simply in isolation with respect to this assembly. What we have to deal with is the question of determining that if we are going to include the nontaxable element as taxable income, then this government, in association with the federal government, has to make arrangements so that the inclusion of that will permit the deduction of appropriate expenses of the member against that $10,000 or whatever the amount should be.
I think it is wrong for this assembly to leave the impression out there that what we are doing is receiving salary in two elements, one part of which is taxable and one nontaxable. I think the proper way to deal with it is simply to say that the total amount is income for tax purposes under the Income Tax Act of Canada and then to say that members will be permitted to deduct such expenses as they can justify as being in relation to the office which they hold. That is a very appropriate change to be made. But I do not want any impression created, either in the assembly or amongst my colleagues who are recently elected members of the assembly, that there is something dishonest in what we are doing. There is nothing dishonest. It is a long tradition. If the tradition is to be questioned, then I think it should be questioned properly.
The answer is not simply to say it is all taxable income. That is not the point. The point is if we are to establish the position of a member of the assembly as the holder of an office, then there has to be provision in the Income Tax Act that the holder of the office can deduct from that income such expenses as he or she can justify for the purpose of arriving at the taxpayer's net taxable income. That is not a difficult matter. It is done every day in the income tax office with respect to independent businessmen and others as to what are and what are not legitimate deductible expenses for the purpose of the office one holds as distinct from the employment one has.
If we are going to look at this matter differently than simply through the Commission on Election Contributions and Expenses, then let us commission somebody to look at that aspect of the matter. Let us at least see what provisions it would be necessary to make in the federal Income Tax Act in order that a proper assessment of the income of a particular member can be made.
I can well envisage members who would not have any expenses. The members of the Conservative Party who hold the pocket boroughs in Ontario would not have to have any expenses, of course. Those of us who live in the heat of the political battle obviously do have expenses which are incurred for the purpose. So there is a substantial inequity already in the system now in force. But everyone knows the political warfare in Ontario is going to require the individual judgement of the member.
If the government House leader is going to institute some study, let us look at it in a realistic way because the governing statute is not a statute over which we have any control. It is the Income Tax Act of Canada. There are ramifications of it which none of us have faced up to, but which should be adequately dealt with. I only intervened in the debate because I do not want the member for Windsor-Sandwich or the member for Hamilton Centre to think for one single moment I will tolerate anyone saying there is something dishonest about what we are doing in connection with the provisions of Bill 127.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to speak at length; I just want to make a couple of remarks. First of all, I would like to associate myself with some remarks made by the member for Riverdale. I would like to comment on the remarks made by the member for Windsor-Riverside. I am at a loss to determine why he would suddenly go on the attack.
Mr. Cooke: It was not an attack.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: It was an attack, whether he realizes it or not. Would he care to hear what I have to say and then maybe he can judge whether it was an attack or not?
He zeroed in on one person in this party, the chief government whip. He seemed to direct his remarks towards the amount of staff the chief government whip has. I would point out the NDP member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) sits on the same committee I do, the Board of Internal Economy, and designates the amount of money to be spent by each caucus. Each caucus has the right to spend that money as it sees fit.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Remind them of what you did for them.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: As a matter of fact, I was just about to do that. The member's House leader sat on that committee when we determined the amount of money to be spent by each caucus. My caucus was among those three. They set the amount and they did not tell us how to use it. They said, "This is the money for the government caucus; this is the money for the Liberal caucus; and this is the money for the New Democratic caucus."
8:30 p.m.
However, we did add a little bit to the New Democratic caucus. I didn't hear them complaining then. I didn't hear any complaints from the New Democratic caucus at that point and we didn't add any conditions as to how that money should be spent.
Interjections.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I will continue when the parrots, or the turkeys, are finished.
The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Gregory, you are being ever so provocative. Continue with the debate. Can we have some order here from my colleagues on the left?
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that never once has this government decided to interfere in how another party spends its caucus funds or its research funds. I am merely suggesting to the member for Windsor-Riverside that I don't think it is within his realm to suggest how we spend our funds. The staff he sees in my office are paid for by those funds, so I think perhaps he is off on the wrong track.
Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, as a new member of this assembly and as one who doesn't hold any of the ranks covered in the previous bill, I feel there is probably nothing more sensitive than for a politician anywhere to rise in his place on a matter of his own salary, particularly when an increase has been recommended.
When we start talking about honesty, honesty must not only be done, it must also appear to be done. It would be much simpler for me, and probably other members of this assembly, simply to sit back in our places and let the debate go for some length and then rise and support it. It may be reflected in the record somewhere that we supported the increase. It may be reflected simply that the increase was approved.
On behalf of my constituents of Scarborough-Ellesmere, I am not shy to say that I stand in my place tonight not only prepared to accept the bill in principle, but also to accept the salary funds attached to it. I believe that is honesty. Quite frankly, I have some difficulty when we start talking about things that are dishonest or appear to be dishonest or may be dishonest. As a politician, I have been in this spot before when increases have come up. One of my observations municipally over a number of years has been that, unfortunately, there were a number of politicians I knew municipally who, when it came time for this question, would always do a mental count of the votes or check around to see how the legislation stood and then would rise in their places and oppose it. I would describe that opposition as being very cavalier in nature indeed.
I would hate to think there are people in this House tonight who would oppose this legislation and accept the funds in any event. A mark of true honesty in this situation, if they are indeed in opposition, would be not only to oppose it in this House and not only to oppose it in the vote, but to show their opposition by not accepting the increase.
Mr. Riddell: I was going to speak but, having heard the former speaker, I think I will just take my seat.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, in summing up the debate on this bill, I think it is a properly reasonable bill. Considering the responsibilities and value of this assembly, no matter what some people in the media or some people outside may say, those of us who have been here know that if democracy is to work, assemblies like this must exist and must work properly. The people who are in them must be paid a decent remuneration. This bill goes a long way to remedying some of the inequities that have existed.
I appreciate very much the remarks of the member for Riverdale. I think he said very well exactly what I would say. There is nothing wrong, dishonest, illegal or improper in what we are doing in this assembly in now having an indemnity or a salary and an expense allowance. It is provided for in the Income Tax Act of Canada. It is provided for in section 81(2), as is the provision for an expense allowance for municipal elected officials in section 81(3).
I think there is great merit in having any group that looks at future remuneration for this assembly look at it in the context that has been set by the member for Riverdale.
It has always been my feeling that if we are to look at removing the expense allowance we must see that we create the kind of position in the public mind and in the minds of the people at the Department of National Revenue that one is not an employee, but a person who has a right to charge off certain legitimate expenses against his income.
We should also look and see if this type of arrangement should apply at the municipal level, because at that level one third of remuneration for municipally elected officials is now tax free allowance. I think that is a legitimate thing but it does not exist at present. If we were to wipe out the present expense allowance, there is absolutely no provision in the Income Tax Act or the interpretations to allow writeoffs for any expenses other than those we now receive on a tax free basis, for instance, for accommodation or for mileage. There is no provision for anything other than the $500 expense allowance now available to employees who pay income tax.
I think it is a legitimate matter to look at and I would tell my friend I think it is something we should write into any terms of reference if anyone looks at this matter over the next few months. I do not think I have any further remarks on this bill. I believe it is fair and I have no hesitation in urging members to support it.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for third reading.
LEEDS AND GRENVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTE ACT (CONCLUDED)
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 124, An Act respecting the Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education and Teachers Dispute.
Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, before the dinner hour, I started to address the problem of this piece of legislation. Over the dinner hour, I could not help but review an item that dealt with the Renfrew strike a couple of years ago.
The former Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) received a communication from the Education Relations Commission stating that the students' successful completion of programs could be in jeopardy. That is what they told the minister that day but, to his credit, his response was: "It is not the intention of the government to introduce legislation to resolve this dispute. I have made it plain to both parties, Mr. Speaker, that it would be futile, not to say irresponsible, for the parties to sit back in the expectation that ultimately the dispute will be resolved by this Legislature."
This afternoon, the member for Leeds (Mr. Runciman) was pleading for this Legislature to resolve a dispute between elected parties; whether it be the elected board or the elected representatives of the teachers, that member was begging this Legislature to resolve that dispute.
I am disappointed with this minister. I am going to come back in a few moments and say why, because I gained a great deal of respect for her over the Sudbury situation, which was tough. It was 56 days long; this one is 25 days. It was 25 days when the minister finally got a notification from the ERC and with 11 days left to go, some of it examinations and so on, and the minister moves then when there is an indication that there is no jeopardy -- in fact, the Education Relations Commission says there is no jeopardy -- she is prepared to move a piece of legislation that will send the whole matter to final-offer selection.
8:40 p.m.
I ask the minister seriously why we do not just get an omnibus piece of legislation which says that in all disputes, whenever the ERC says there is jeopardy or there might be jeopardy, we will invoke this type of legislation? We can do it like the ad valorem provision so that it just kicks in whenever the ERC says so; we are off to the races and we do not even have to come back here to get approval in this Legislature. That is what the minister is leading to; that is what she is setting the stage for.
I want to ask the minister how, in the next dispute when it gets to 25 or 26 days, she is going to be able to say, "No, I do not want to intervene."
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Sault Ste. Marie went 13 days, remember.
Mr. Martel: Yes. What did you do?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I didn't do anything. They were legislated back.
Mr. Martel: I am saying that when there seems to be a logjam 25 days now becomes the time at which teachers will insist that the minister intervene; that is the watershed. That is what we were worried about, as she will recall, in the Sudbury legislation.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: There is no watershed. It has been all the way from 13 to 50.
Mr. Martel: I am saying the time the minister intervened. She did not intervene in the Sudbury one by legislation.
I want to know how the minister is going to say to one group, once the time comes that it has reached 25 days, "I am not prepared to intervene on this one." What kind of rationale is that? There is no jeopardy in Leeds, and yet she is prepared to intervene because she has some pressure from the new boy. How in another situation is she going to be able to say no? It does not make sense. There is no jeopardy.
The minister is setting the stage for the twenty-fifth or the thirty-sixth day, whichever she wants to use as the watershed when she must intervene or she will have a lousy time trying to say no in all future disputes. She will have a terrible time saying to one of her own backbenchers or one of the Liberal members that it is time to intervene. How is she going to say no when she does not have jeopardy in this one and she is intervening? How is she going to refuse to intervene in another dispute, because the ERC might say, "Down the road there might be jeopardy; the House is sitting"?
We know that the House can come back. I have had to come back more than once in my 14 years here on legislation to return certain groups of people to work. She simply has nothing to stand on. She has set the watershed now at 25 or 36 days, and I want to know how she is going to say no to someone else, particularly when there is no jeopardy involved in this one.
What worries me in addition to that is why anyone should negotiate under these circumstances. If that situation arises -- and I heard the members this afternoon say they were not prepared to negotiate -- does the minister think a piece of legislation before this Legislature is going to force them to negotiate? All either side will do is just sit back and say: "No, it is going to be resolved. Why should we give an inch? Why should we negotiate any differently than we have for the last 17 or 18 months?"
Meaningful negotiations are finished. I hope some of the government members realize that, because if I did not want to get involved in surrendering managerial rights with respect to classroom size I would sit tight. In sitting tight I know that during the first week of September the bill will get royal assent; somebody is going to resolve the dilemma for me, and collective bargaining goes down the drain. That is what the minister is doing.
This is why this is such a crazy piece of legislation. I stand in my place tonight, knowing that to encourage this minister to withdraw the bill is a waste of time. She will not, even though there is no jeopardy. She will not, even though it will destroy collective bargaining. It will not matter, there will be no collective bargaining. We know that in the Sudbury situation every time the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Smith) called for return-to-work legislation, the negotiations just died for a week to a week and a half.
The minister can go and check with the teachers' association if she wants. Because they anticipated return-to-work legislation, they just sat tight and it was always a tremendous effort to get going again. If she does not agree with me, she can go and talk to the teachers' federation, of which she is a member.
I want to turn to the Sudbury strike, because I was heavily involved in it.
Mr. Kerrio: No one cares about the children.
Mr. Martel: That is the sickest thing I have ever heard. If the member is telling me that teachers who are involved in a strike do not care about the children, there is something wrong with him. There is something terribly wrong; he is a bit of a sicko, I suggest.
Mr. Kerrio: That is sad.
Mr. Martel: Yes, that is sad.
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Mr. Kerrio, you are being provocative.
Mr. Martel: If he is telling me that teachers, who spend night after night preparing, who work on weekends, use children as whipping boys, I think there is something sadly lacking in him.
Mr. Kerrio: The children suffer.
The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Kerrio, we have been getting along so well here since eight o'clock and you are not helping matters any.
Mr. Martel: Let me say to the member that if, in a career that extends 14 years from the time a child starts school, possibly 15 if the child goes to junior kindergarten, till he or she gets out of secondary school, a month-long strike is the thing that is going to ruin a child's education, then I want to tell him the educational system is in bad shape. It is in bad shape, if one month in 15 years is going to ruin an academic education. If so, then hell, we had better start all over again.
Mr. Kerrio: A good idea.
Mr. Martel: We had better start all over again, because I tell the member there is more to it than 20 days. In fact, frequently parents take kids out for two weeks to go off to the Caribbean, or they take them out a week early at Easter to go down to Florida. Kids miss time all over. No one likes a strike, no one really wins in a strike, but there comes a time in all situations where there is no alternative and that is when the crunch comes. Certainly it is an economic war, that is what it is all about, all strikes are. Interestingly enough, most of them are not over wages. That is something my friends to my right might learn, most strikes are not over wages.
Let me deal with the Sudbury strike, which was 56 days or 54 days long.
The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Martel, keep --
Mr. Martel: I am speaking on this bill, Mr. Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: I was just going to bring your attention to it.
Mr. Martel: I am not straying from the bill. It is a return-to-work piece of legislation. I simply draw your attention to a strike that went on for 56 days. There was no jeopardy declared and the minister was not prepared to intervene. We encouraged her not to and, to her credit, she did not. I am amazed that she is intervening now.
That is what I want to talk about, that with a 56-day strike the pressure was great on all of us. Do members think we were not receiving phone calls and letters regularly? Certainly we were. A strike is not an easy situation. We talked to the minister almost daily. We indicated to her we would not insist on return-to-work legislation and it got tough as it got down to the thirty-fifth and fortieth days, but I have a profound respect for the collective bargaining process. In the final analysis, for working people, that is the only answer. Every time we are prepared to intervene, we destroy that a little bit.
8:50 p.m.
We felt legislation was not necessary because there is an elected board and an elected group of teachers. If the pressure should come, it should not be on this Legislature; it should be on those board members and on those teachers locally. In the Sudbury area, we encouraged teachers to set up forums and to invite the board and the parents so each side could present its position. At the end of about the fiftieth day, my colleagues and I called a meeting in Sudbury and there was teacher bashing galore. It was the sport. We called the meeting and put it on all the media. We got a big hall and after 50 days of strike 50 parents, at most, 50 teachers and one board member showed up.
Interjection.
Mr. Martel: Do not tell me about negotiations. I am talking about 50 days of strike, my friend.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: I am telling you what happened in Kemptville. They had 200 parents there.
Mr. Martel: That is good. I hope they would then start to apply the pressure to both sides equally, so that it does not become teacher bashing.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: They did.
Mr. Martel: Obviously they did not, because here we stand tonight with a piece of legislation, trying to resolve the dilemma the elected board members and teacher representatives have not been able to work their way out of. That is the issue and that is where the pressure should be. It should not be here, particularly when there is no jeopardy. It might be a horse of a different colour if we were talking about jeopardy. Does the minister understand the bill at all? We are talking about the group that is there, supposedly to protect kids, saying there is jeopardy. They are saying there is not. Does the minister understand that?
Interjection.
Mr. Martel: No.
Mr. Jones: The kids are in the vise.
Mr. Martel: Turn to point 25.
Mr. Jones: You are saying it should not be here.
Mr. Martel: The pressure should be up there, right on; that is where it should be resolved. Once we get jeopardy, then this place acts if it wants to act, but not before there is jeopardy. Does the government not believe in its own legislation?
Mr. Bradley: No, it flouts it.
Mr. Martel: The member wants to remove a whole year.
The members opposite do not believe in their own legislation. They are being bamboozled, because if that is the intent of the act, what the hell are we doing here tonight?
Mr. Jones: We understand Bill 100.
Mr. Martel: The member cannot understand it very well because the minister is getting her way when there is no jeopardy. We have come back in September before. We came back in September for the Toronto Transit Commission workers a number of years ago.
Mr. Cunningham: The NDP opposed it.
Mr. Martel: Certainly I opposed it, because I oppose any interference in collective bargaining.
Mr. Renwick: But we came back in September.
Mr. Martel: We came back in September. That is the key issue. If the minister wanted this legislation to go through when there is jeopardy, that is when she brings the House back. She should not say if there is jeopardy somewhere down the road we will give a bill royal assent and then we will move in. What kind of legislation are we prepared to set, not only here but everywhere else? If something is going to happen, we are going to have a piece of legislation ready somewhere down the road. That is nuts.
I applauded the minister in Sudbury when she would not interfere. I said it publicly and she knows it. When things got tough enough, the minister said to both sides: "Come to Toronto. I want to talk to you." In a marathon session, which the minister attended for most of the night, she managed to get both sides to agree and there was no intervention. That is the way it should work. However, we are not prepared to do that here and that is what bothers me. As I say, Sudbury was 56 or 54 days. They steadfastly refused because there was no jeopardy. Here, without jeopardy, the government is prepared to move in. I cannot understand what it is all about. I really cannot.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Each comes on its own merit.
Mr. Martel: I have read the material the minister has put before me. What merit? They say one has to have it because the House will not be sitting. That is nonsense. They are also saying the sides are not negotiating very well. One might ask the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) if they were negotiating very well in the Sudbury strike for a while. They would not even talk to each other for great periods of time. They were running ads against each other.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: And the member calls that responsible collective bargaining?
Mr. Martel: No, I did not say that. One cannot have it both ways. The minister said the circumstances are different. I tell her that is nonsense. We saw what went on in Sudbury. We saw the ads both sides ran. It was vicious; it was distorted. But they got out of it and now they have a collective agreement this year, which we will not have next year when the government forces this through. If the government forces this one, they will be right back at it a year from now. If they have not had to work their way out, within a year of forcing this they will be back at it. In Windsor that has happened more than once. They have to work it out themselves. That is what the collective bargaining process is about.
The minister is here tonight conning her colleagues. I have talked to many of them. They do not want this bill but they are not prepared to move against the minister. I have phoned some of my friends in that area. They tell me teacher bashing is the name of the game now. We have found that in Sudbury. But after a tough year they are now negotiating and they have a contract. It was just this week the public school signed, as did the separate school, and they were on the verge of strike.
But without jeopardy the minister is prepared to intervene. I cannot understand how she can do this after Sudbury -- after 54 or 56 days of some of the most vicious ads and what not. There is no difference. I will give the minister a chance to tell me what is different.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: What kind of an effect did that have on the kids?
Mr. Martel: I hope we will get a report on what happened to all those kids who went on to university and community college this year. I hope the ministry is following that to find out how many failed in first-year university or at the community college.
Mr. T. P. Reid: The ones who dropped out did not go back.
Mr. Martel: We have said to the minister, "If there is jeopardy come September, bring the House back." The minister is not prepared to do that. She has listened to the Education Relations Commission, which says there is no jeopardy, but she is prepared to move in. One cannot use the kids that did not make it. The government can bring this House back any time it wants. That is not a legitimate argument. There is no jeopardy; therefore, we should not be debating. The minister knows it and I know it.
I do not know where the pressures on the minister are coming from, but she was much tougher in Sudbury and I gave her credit for that. My two colleagues and I never once asked the minister to bring in legislation. We were facing the heat tougher than the minister's friend in the back row there because it was 54 days.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am sorry, but neither did my colleagues ask for it either.
Mr. Martel: No. I would like to know then who is getting to the minister. I heard them say this afternoon it was the only way it would be resolved.
It is interesting that the issue in that strike, as I understand it, is really classroom size. I am also told the Leeds-Grenville board spent about $2,350 per student, which is about $300 less per student than the provincial average for last year. I am intrigued by this because of what I read. The minister indicates she was misquoted, and I will accept that.
9 p.m.
She knows the document I am referring to. I have it in my hand. It is called News Today, and it says: "It makes no difference whether there are 50 or 15 students in a class so long as the teacher is qualified. There is no evidence that smaller classes create better education." As a teacher, I disagree with that totally. It certainly makes a difference whether there are 50 or 15 students.
What is interesting is that we had a commission headed by Dr. Jackson and he made some very profound statements. He got in trouble a couple of times for some of the statements he made.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: With you.
Mr. Martel: With us, yes; I was just getting around to that. The minister did not let me.
He made some statements that a lot of people were not prepared to accept, particularly as they pertained to females. He got into a lot of hot water over that, but Dr. Jackson also recommended certain things pertaining to classroom size.
An hon. member: Because of declining enrolment.
Mr. Martel: Declining enrolment; all right, because of declining enrolment, he told the Minister of Education the type of funding that she should continue to put into the educational system. I think he said she should not reduce the amount because of the declining enrolment. It was something to that effect and the minister can correct me if I am wrong. I think he said something to that effect.
It is to the government's advantage. We know that in most arbitrations which occurred I do not think the arbitrators really wanted to get involved in classroom size. They shied away from it.
If the government is not prepared to fund it adequately, and that is the issue down there, then it is to the government's advantage to send it to arbitration, because the arbitrator will not intervene. He will leave things as they are. The province, as it has for two or three years now on declining enrolment, has failed to respond. What a better way --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am sorry, but you are wrong. I said what?
Mr. Martel: I do not think the government has done much to offset the declining enrolment.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Do you expect us to go out and populate the world?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: My colleague has produced five children almost overnight.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.
Mr. Martel: He is fast. He is the fastest man in all Mexico.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I was only there once for three hours in Tijuana.
Mr. Martel: It is to this government's advantage; if teachers were to start to win that battle about improving the classroom size, which would lead to improving the quality of education, funding would have to come from somewhere. We know that arbitrators, by and large, have not dealt in that area.
If that is the key issue -- really the issue that is the stumbling block to making progress -- it is to the government's advantage then not to have it resolved by negotiation. If they had to give a little --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I would be delighted to have it resolved.
Mr. Martel: Well, then, I suggest to the minister if she wants it resolved she should tell them, as her colleague did when the Education Relations Commission said --
lnterjections.
The Acting Speaker: Mr. Martel has the floor. Miss Stephenson, you will have an opportunity to respond.
Mr. Martel: When the ERC told the former Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) that they thought there was jeopardy he ordered both sides back to the bargaining table. The government does not have jeopardy and the ERC says they do not have jeopardy and the minister is prepared to intervene.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: He is being silly, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Martel: I am what? Why?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: You say forcing them back to the bargaining table.
The Acting Speaker: Order. Mr. Martel has the floor. Please allow him to continue.
Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, excuse me for a moment. I am looking for the minister of the day's statement. He said, "I have received a communication from the ERC. The dispute needs to be resolved promptly for the students' sakes and because of the disruptive effect on the communities involved. I urge you most strongly to take steps to resume negotiations at once to resolve the dispute within the options available under Bill 100. Both parties have a clear responsibility to proceed immediately in this matter. The Education Relations Commission stands ready to assist. It is not the intention ... " and so on.
The former Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) told them to get back to negotiating. I am reading from his statement. Why does the minister not do it? Why does she not tell them she is not prepared to intervene because there is no jeopardy and to get back to the table? But no, she is going to come in here in a high-handed fashion and ram through a piece of legislation that is not even called for under the present legislation, Bill 100. There is no jeopardy; therefore, it is not called for.
She can stand there and say yes till hell freezes over or nod her head. She knows there is not.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: No, I do not.
Mr. Martel: It is just ridiculous that we are even here tonight debating this bill. When jeopardy comes, that is when she should decide to act and bring the House back, not before then.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) and the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) could be doing that every day. Everybody over there could bring in a piece of legislation to avoid something that might happen somewhere down the road. That is what the minister is doing. Something might happen somewhere down the road; so we put a piece of legislation into effect. If it does happen, we give it royal assent and we send it off to final-offer selection. She is heading off something that might occur.
I see the minister shaking her head. It says right in here, "While it is our opinion there is an absence of compelling evidence that jeopardy exists at this precise point, we feel that the government should be in a position to respond without delay should it become clear to the ERC that the continuation of the sanction will place in jeopardy the successful completion of courses of study by students affected by the strike." Should jeopardy occur, we want a piece of legislation in place to head it off. If we started doing that in every field --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am not asking you to do that.
Mr. Martel: No, I know she is not asking anybody to do anything. She is saying that she is prepared to intervene even though there is no jeopardy. I can understand the minister's willingness to do that, because the best way for the government to handle anything that deals with classroom size is to have it sent to arbitration and, therefore, arbitrators do not rule or deal with classroom size, by and large; so then she does not have to cough up any more money.
Having watched this minister in the Sudbury strike when she took a tough stand and was not prepared to move -- in fact, she had not called or considered jeopardy after 54 or 56 days -- why she is doing it now, with two and a half months of possible negotiations before that event occurs, really disturbs me to no end.
I wish she would withdraw the bill, leave it on the Order Paper and indicate that if jeopardy is declared she is prepared to ask the Premier (Mr. Davis) to bring the House back immediately and everyone will come back. I urge her not to proceed unless she can show us there is jeopardy beyond a shadow of a doubt.
What she is doing is wrong. It is wrong with respect to Bill 100. It is wrong from the point of view of meaningful collective bargaining. I think she understands that -- at least in the Sudbury situation she did. I do not know what has changed her so dramatically that she is prepared to intervene at the first outset.
I want her to explain to me what the difference is so that I will understand the difference, because in the material that has been presented to me there is nothing different.
Mr. Gordon: Mr. Speaker, I have to stand and speak against this bill for very clear reasons I want to enunciate to this House, one of the first reasons being that I think it flies in the face of Conservative principle and philosophy. We in this party believe in the individual, and we believe the rights of the individual must be cherished and protected at all costs.
As well, we believe in the rights of the groups in this province. That is one of the reasons Bill 100 was such a progressive bill and is still a very progressive bill. It was brought in by a Conservative government, a government that believed certain groups -- in particular, the teachers -- should be given the right to strike and to have collective bargaining with those elected people, the boards of education.
9:10 p.m.
There are certain rights; there is freedom of speech, there is the right to assembly and there is the right to bargain collectively. This is a very important principle we have here, and it is one we cannot just let slide by at this particular moment.
As Conservatives, we believe in less government, not more. As Conservatives, we believe in less legislation, not more. I say, let these parties work this problem out between themselves. One of the problems that occurs when collective bargaining does not work out to its complete fruition is that it leaves a great deal of bitterness and misunderstanding behind. I am very fearful that in this case we are unwittingly going to establish some very real problems in Leeds-Grenville.
Some of our colleagues on the other side, particularly the Liberals, seem to feel that collective bargaining should always work very smoothly; they seem to feel there should be no problems, no warts or no pimples. I am not surprised that the Liberals have taken the tack they have taken, because they really have not shown themselves to be people who are interested in the rights of the working people of this province. They are not interested in these teachers, and they are not interested in that board. I do not think that board, any more than those teachers in Leeds-Grenville, wants to have this particular bill. Deep down, they know too that in the years ahead it will create problems.
I do not see how the members opposite can take any pride in the particular stand they are taking. It is a very negative stand. Not only that, but also I think the very fact of the matter is that it was a Conservative government that brought in this bill, and that is why I am supporting Bill 100.
Mr. Bradley: We didn't bring in the legislation; the Minister of Education brought in the legislation. Direct your comments to her.
Mr. Kerrio: Are you confused about who brought in this legislation?
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Gordon: It has been made quite clear that there is no jeopardy in this case. There is no jeopardy for the students for the year that has just been completed. That is one of the key provisions of the bill. Nor is there jeopardy in the event that these two parties are not able to come to terms over the summer.
What is much worse for students is when their school year is broken up in the middle. Any of us who are parents and have experienced a teachers' strike know what its effects are. I, as a parent, have experienced a teachers' strike; I have had my children at home as a result of that strike and I have seen the problems. But it is much worse when it breaks things up in the middle of the year. We do not have that situation right now; so I cannot support the bill.
Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma as it relates to this problem. I baited the member for Sudbury East and for that I am sorry, because he did make some comments that were worth listening to.
However, the comments by the member who has just finished speaking really strain one's credibility. I cannot believe that, unless we have a new system of schooling, we could allow some youngster to go through the school system and be exposed to this kind of situation, which could happen more than once.
There is no guarantee that a young person is going to be involved with only one strike along the way; it could be, if he has an unfortunate circumstance, that at various stages of schooling he could be involved in three or four strikes and that in each situation someone might decide the young person's education is not in jeopardy. I cannot believe that good-thinking people would say such a young person's education was not being jeopardized.
We have gone to great lengths in this Legislature to accommodate those people who have learning disabilities, and we are talking about new ways to make certain a young person gets an education. There is only one way one can be certain that a young person is going to get an education, and that is if he is attending school.
I buy the whole philosophy of people who work hard for the whole procedure as it relates to unions and the work place; I think it is worthwhile where there is a product. But when we take a product away from a community, I cannot believe we can talk in terms of rational bargaining when the children's education and their whole future are involved. I cannot believe anyone who ever taught could even consider that a child out of the classroom does not have his whole education process in jeopardy.
Interjections.
Mr. Kerrio: No, there is no way.
There are two or three other facets of this that have added to the whole problem. In the last few years with this new system a whole executive branch has been added that takes big money away from many of the classroom teachers who should be getting it. If Bill 100 had to be eliminated, with that would be the responsibility of paying teachers a fair salary.
I find no argument there whatsoever. But I think we have strayed so far from meaningful legislation we have had to accommodate Bill 100 by putting in a system where one does not know whether the children's education is jeopardized. If there were a testing system at each stage one would know very well whether a student's education had been jeopardized.
We have forgone all of that. That new executive branch in the school system does not suffer when the teachers are on strike. But I cannot believe anyone would criticize me for suggesting the children suffer in a way that is unconscionable and we should not put up with it any longer.
Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly on the bill, because in this party we have had a long history of speaking against this kind of legislation.
I want to spend a moment or two about my concerns on the bill. I cannot speak with the eloquence that comes from the intimate knowledge of the educational process that my colleague the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) or the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) can speak with. I certainly cannot bring to it the intensity of feeling that our House leader, the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), can bring to this issue.
For a moment when the member for Sudbury was speaking, I thought there had been no change; that he was perhaps on the wrong side of the House. I could almost hear my former colleague and member for Sudbury, Bud Germa, when he spoke about these matters.
I do not know whether the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) is sitting there to make certain the member for Sudbury toes some line or whether the Minister of Labour wants to associate himself by proximity with the remarks made by him. I assume it is the latter. I assume he knows as well as I do what I will say in a moment or two.
Hon. Mr. Elgie: I just came to say hello.
Mr. Renwick: As a member for eastern Ontario -- and for me eastern Ontario is east of Yonge Street -- this kind of bill would not be tolerated in any built-up area of the province. We have seen this before. It does not matter where the union movement moves, the Tories will attack it in the places it is weakest. We saw it in the Proctor-Silex strike, and we saw it in Peterborough years ago. This is not only an attack but also a subversion of the government's own legislation.
If I were the member for Carleton-Grenville or the member for Leeds, the last thing I would want would be the intrusion of this government into a local matter. The incumbent members have to understand that is exactly what is happening: an intrusion into the affairs of the Leeds-Grenville area with respect to this legislation.
I cannot follow the tortured logic of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) as to the conclusion he arrives at, but I am fundamentally impressed with the position he took in the early part of his remarks, which was to emphasize a great deal of what had been said about the bill by my colleague the member for Oakwood.
9:20 p.m.
What this bill does is to prejudge what the Education Relations Commission is supposed to do. Everyone quotes the statement made in the letter to the minister. I would be interested if the minister would perhaps nod affirmatively or negatively by raising her head and nodding it vertically or horizontally as to whether there was any discussion prior to this letter being written by the Education Relations Commission to the minister. Was there any prior discussion by the ministry or anyone in the ministry with anyone within the Education Relations Commission or on the staff of that commission?
The minister leans forward and puts her elbows on her desk. That is a very ambivalent response. I trust somewhere we will learn the answer to that question.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: The Speaker told me to be quiet.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Renwick: The letter is too clever by half, and that is where the minister is stuck with the bill, because the obligation of the Education Relations Commission under the statute of this assembly is to determine jeopardy. I do not need to say it any more than anyone else has said it.
Mr. Kerrio: I don't think they are really stuck with the bill.
Mr. Renwick: Pardon? Oh, it is the member for Niagara Falls. I remember, he is the counsel who carries the crippled child into the courtroom to persuade the jury he should get a large award of damages. We are familiar with that.
Mr. Kerrio: No, I do not hobnob with lawyers.
Mr. Renwick: I know very well what the honourable member does all the time when he stands in this House. When he stood in the House tonight, what did he do? He said strikes were jeopardizing the education of children. He gave no single example of any kind where any child has been disadvantaged in his education.
He turned it around in a minute or two so that he would be not against the teachers but in favour of them. He started talking about the large number of dollars that were paid up in the other echelons of the education circuit.
The Acting Speaker: Carry on, Mr. Renwick. Let us not be --
Mr. Renwick: I was really speaking to you, Mr. Speaker, not to the member for Niagara Falls, but I have heard him on bills night after night with this trying to play both sides of the street. It may be possible in Niagara Falls; it is not possible in Riverdale. I want him to understand that.
I want to come back to what the bill is trying to say. The bill is saying the prejudgement by the commission of the fact there will be jeopardy, regardless, on the day after Labour Day is going to bring this bill into effect. What the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk said was that there is no single occasion when the Education Relations Commission has ever exercised the power given to it to determine jeopardy. The minister objected at that time, and I will listen carefully to the number of occasions when the Education Relations Commission has had the determination to carry out the intent of the legislation.
The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk and I may not be up to every minute detail, but there have been very few cases, if any, of the exercise by that Education Relations Commission of its fundamental obligation. What have they done? They have said they cannot now indicate jeopardy but that somewhere down the line there will be jeopardy. The minister has said that date of jeopardy is going to precede Labour Day. The bill is going to be proclaimed by that date whether or not the Education Relations Commission makes a determination about jeopardy.
As I read the bill, if the bill does not come into effect in advance of Labour Day, it is no good. It cannot come in on September 10, September 20 or September 30. It must be proclaimed prior to Labour Day by the government. That is a prejudgement of a state of jeopardy in the educational system which the Education Relations Commission must make and nobody else.
If there is an agreement between the minister and the commission that before Labour Day there will be a declaration of jeopardy, then I say that is a conspiracy to subvert the legislation, because that time has not come and the circumstances in which that decision will be made have not yet arrived.
I want to quote from the letter of the Education Relations Commission. Everyone else has quoted it; presumably somebody could put together all the pieces of this letter that have been quoted by various members of the House and one might have the whole of the literature, but we do not need to have it, because the minister read it into the House when she made her opening statement.
The Education Relations Commission asked that "the proclamation of legislation by the Lieutenant Governor in Council be deferred at least until such time as an advisement under section 61(1)(h) is tendered by the commission." The bill does not say that. The bill says it will come into effect by Labour Day whether or not the commission makes any such determination.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Renwick: I have never heard of a point of privilege in the midst of a debate, but I will listen to it. If the member wants to ask a question --
The Acting Speaker: Mr. Sterling has the floor.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I was just reading the bill, and I ask the member to point to the section he is referring to when he says it has to be proclaimed before September 1.
Mr. Renwick: I understand my colleague the member for Kitchener-Wilmot wants the bill to go into committee, and that would be an appropriate place to deal with it.
Let me simply say that the operative provision of the bill is section 2. That is the section that requires the resumption of employment and the operation of the schools and that must take place: "The teachers who are on strike against the board shall, on the first school day following the day this act comes into force, return to and resume their duties in accordance with their contracts of employment ... " That is Labour Day, the day when the schools reopen. That is the purpose of the bill. Then it later says, "This act comes into force on a day to be named by proclamation of the Lieutenant Governor ... "
Hon. Miss Stephenson: It can be any day.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: It could be any day.
Mr. Renwick: It could be any day, but the member knows as well as I do --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: There is no date in the bill.
Mr. Renwick: The minister knows as well as I do that what she is talking about -- oh, come on, let's not kid ourselves.
"Despite this danger" -- I am quoting from the letter -- "there is an absence of convincing evidence that jeopardy to courses of study exists at this time." Then it goes on: "For this, and other reasons, it would be inappropriate for us to declare jeopardy at this moment. Nevertheless, the commission has consistently followed ... " and so on. "That is, our concern relates to the unique aspects of this particular sanction, viz. the possible continuation of the strike into a new school year after the loss of a considerable number of school days in the current school year and without any indication of a future settlement point."
What is the minister talking about? She is talking about Labour Day and the day after it.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: No.
Mr. Renwick: Then if she is not, she destroys the purpose of her bill, because the House can be called into session at any time. She does not need to have the luxury of sitting around waiting for us to decide what the decision is going to be. She wants to be able to decide it without any further recourse to this assembly at present. The minister knows that.
The minister wants to deny that what they are talking about is making certain that the day the schools resume, the teachers will be back in the schools and the schools will be in operation. Is that not what the minister is about?
Mr. Martel: That is why she will not answer.
Mr. Renwick: I do not know. The minister somewhere will answer to it.
Mr. Grande: She made a statement in Ottawa about that.
Mr. Renwick: That is exactly what it is about.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: That is what we would like.
Mr. Martel: Oh, so that is what they would like. I am glad to hear it.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
9:30 p.m.
Mr. Renwick: If the minister is saying to this assembly that she is going to await a determination by the Education Relations Commission that that question will not be affected at all by the resumption of the school year, then there is absolutely no reason for this bill. It is not interfering with my convenience, I can assure the members of that; it is not interfering with the convenience of any of the teachers; it is not interfering with the convenience of the school trustees in the area.
Is it interfering with the convenience of the government? Is it that the government does not want to have the assembly called back into session to deal with the bill? The government may not have mentioned Labour Day in the bill, but that is what it is all about, and they know it as well as I do.
Interjections.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Renwick: But I want to underline simply for my own satisfaction, if I can, the point that was made by the member for Sudbury East: the moment you interfere with the collective bargaining system in this way you destroy the effectiveness of that system of settling disputes.
The question for the member for Leeds (Mr. Runciman) and the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Sterling) is: Why would they want this government to intrude in their area on a matter that is a basic local and particular concern? Why do they not --
Hon. Mr. Sterling: Because they have been negotiating for 18 months, that is why.
Mr. Cooke: What is wrong with negotiating for 18 months?
Mr. Renwick: Of course they have been negotiating for 18 months. But where is the public pressure, where is the sense of community? Does nothing ever bring anything to bear on the school trustees or the teachers in that area? Does nothing happen? And do they not come to the bargaining table to bargain in good faith?
Hon. Mr. Sterling: No, they do not.
The Acting Speaker: The private dialogue is not needed. Mr. Renwick has the floor.
Mr. Renwick: I know. Actually, I am having a dialogue with you, Mr. Speaker.
All I want to say to the member is that he is making a fundamental mistake in allowing this government to intrude into his local area. This would never happen in any of the school boards in the Metropolitan Toronto area or in any of the other areas across the province where there is a significant concentration of people. The member knows that.
I cannot believe that a government would pass a bill such as Bill 100 and then move by this kind of legislation to subvert the very purpose for which that commission was established.
I and, I am sure, many of my colleagues share many of the views expressed by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, that the solution of the problem was that there had to be a determination of jeopardy. And I will not let the Education Relations Commission off the hook by letting them prejudge and have available to them legislation that will permit them to say, "Yes, there is jeopardy," and then have the legislation come into force. That is a destruction of the right to strike which we provided in Bill 100. It is a destruction of the principle on which the bill was going to operate, and it is a destruction of Bill 100.
If I were a member of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, I would be very seriously concerned as to whether this is a stage-by-stage and step-by-step method of persuading the public in Ontario that somehow or other the public service of Ontario should not be given the right to strike. We are seeing that attacked every place and everywhere. We have stood in our places for many of these back-to-work bills; we have fought them and we have voted against them time after time.
But time will tell that the solution in Bill 100 should not be tampered with by special legislation in an isolated case in this assembly at the end of a session before a summer adjournment on the excuse that somehow or other we are going to adjourn. Every member of the assembly is available to be recalled at any time. The matter can be dealt with in this assembly in the light of the facts as they then exist, and we are not going to prejudge these situations.
I do not know where the government is going on these issues. The Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) is here. We will have another go at him tonight because what he is trying to do is to pre-empt for himself the same kind of right to determine this kind of problem.
I would ask many members of the assembly, including members of the Conservative Party, to vote against this bill.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: I think some of the facts, which should have been brought out earlier in the debate, should be laid on the floor at this time.
First, I hope everyone is aware that there is a declining enrolment in the secondary school system in Leeds-Grenville. Teachers are asking for smaller class sizes, not without some sympathy from parents' groups. In fact, parents' groups are pretty evenly balanced between the boards and the teachers. If class size is limited as indicated in the negotiating position, eight to 12 teachers who would have lost their positions this year will be retained at a cost of somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000.
I do not think we in this Legislature should debate whether class size is or is not an educational issue. That is what the board and the teachers are going to decide in the end in their agreement. In my personal opinion I think there is some truth to the idea that class size probably does have some effect on the quality of education in some cases. However, in some cases it would not have any effect. For instance, I do not think class size makes that much difference in more mature classes, in scientific classes, or in mathematics classes. That is my personal opinion.
Mr. Martel: Where are you from?
Hon. Mr. Sterling: I am from Carleton-Grenville.
Mr. Martel: What great knowledge of yours allows you to make a determination on whether it makes a difference or not?
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: I have a bit of education in my background. My wife happens to be a high school teacher who taught for eight years in the system. My mother was a teacher, my aunt was a teacher and my father was a school principal. How many more teachers can one have in a family?
The Deputy Speaker: On Bill 124.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: They were asking for my experience, Mr. Speaker, in terms of this legislation.
The Deputy Speaker: Deal with the bill.
Mr. Martel: You picked the worst subject you could have picked. If you had said history, everybody would have agreed with you.
Hon. Mr. Sterling: That is probably because the member across the way does not understand mathematics. Class size is the issue in this particular matter.
The member for Leeds (Mr. Runciman) and I also met with teachers of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation last week. They laid three issues on our table. First, they asked that they be allowed to bargain for the next two or three months without this legislation coming into effect. I must say that stance has some attraction. However, the fact of the matter is that the parties have been bargaining for a period of 18 months.
Richard Jackson in his report of June 4 said: "It is my belief that after 17 months of bargaining, after strenuous efforts by three mediators and after a strike which as of today will cost 20 school days, the parties are now no closer to settlement than they were when the strike began. Indeed, on the major issues they are considerably further apart. I reluctantly concluded that without strong action the parties would not be able to resolve this dispute."
I think that sums up the feeling of both the member for Leeds and myself in terms of having something that will force the two parties together to bring an end to this dispute.
9:40 p.m.
The question put forward by the teachers who visited us in our offices was whether we thought any bargaining would go on when the bill was passed. My response to them was, and it would still be, that no less bargaining will go on than has gone on in the past.
One of the other two issues raised by the teachers referred to their desire to have binding arbitration instead of final offer selection. In its letter, the Education Relations Commission indicated final offer selection was the most desirable way. The issue was raised by the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) that there were still 35 issues on the table. When confronted with this matter, the teachers did acknowledge that. Although they had not signed off on those issues, most of the issues save two, money and class size, were informally agreed upon.
The other matter brought to the fore was the length of contract; they want two years instead of the three years in this bill. I can see that in terms of the final offer selection process neither side wants to be bound to a contract for three years. But we must remember that this contract will go back more than one year, and to throw the parties back into this same process after one year would be very detrimental to both sides.
I also want to indicate that it is the teachers and the board who are in jeopardy with respect to final offer selection. The board should understand, when it is trying to reach a conclusion in the summer, that it is not the intention of the Minister of Education to bail the board out with additional funding to cover off what it may or may not lose because of the board's bad faith or putting forward a ridiculous position when it comes to final offer selection.
As I said before, the parents in the area are very concerned about the extension of this strike. While the ERC did not find jeopardy, I have had talks with some of the teachers, some of the principals and some of the grade 13 students in the area, and I do not agree with that. I have to agree with the member for Kitchener-Wilmot; I think there has been jeopardy. In particular, I think there has been jeopardy for students who are going on to university. They were taking courses that are normally extended as a continuation of the grade 13 program. I do believe the strike has already caused considerable detriment to the students of Leeds-Grenville.
I sum up my remarks on this bill with this comment. I received a call a few days ago from a concerned parent who had attended a meeting at Kemptville, where 200 parents gathered to meet with both the trustees and the teachers. Interestingly, the teachers came off the best at that meeting. The caller related to me that he was pleased with the actions taken by the Minister of Education and urged me not to support in any way any backing off of the position of this government on this matter.
Mr. Cooke: I am going to be very brief, Mr. Speaker.
Applause.
Mr. Cooke: The members opposite have taken all the time tonight, not us. It has been the government's speakers trying to defend an indefensible position.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: It's a point of view.
Mr. Cooke: I want to say a few words because as a former school board trustee I was involved in a few teacher-board disputes in the Windsor area. I think the Windsor experience should teach the minister what can happen when legislation comes forward and what would happen if the minister said tonight this bill was not going to go forward and it was the responsibility of the teachers and the board, and not this Legislature, to settle their differences.
The minister can shake her head, but the former Minister of Education, now the House leader for the Conservative Party, understood the Windsor problem well. We had two strikes in two years when I was on that board.
When it was coming around to the third time, the minister and the chairman of the Education Relations Commission at the time said, "As far as we are concerned, Windsor can stay out on strike for a year, but we are not going to intervene." As a result of the clear indication from this government that there was not going to be any intervention, the Board of Education for the City of Windsor and its secondary school teachers signed a three-year agreement.
It was the first agreement they had settled in many contract negotiations without a strike and without legislation. I think the relationship between the Windsor board and the secondary teachers now is much better than it has ever been before.
In regard to the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) saying people do not care about the children, the fact of the matter is when arbitration or legislation is used to impose a settlement, the relationship between the board and the teachers and the morale in the classroom are such that the children continue to suffer. It is not just when the strike is on, but it is also after the strike when the bad feelings continue.
The minister should say clearly tonight she will not just hold off this bill until September. That does not solve the problem. During the last strike we had in Windsor, four days after the teachers went out on strike the Premier (Mr. Davis) said publicly Windsor had had enough strikes and the government was only going to wait a little while and then it would bring in legislation.
As soon as that indication was out, the board at that point no longer wanted to negotiate with its teachers. I know that. We had plenty of committee of the whole meetings where we discussed the matter. Never once did we discuss negotiations with the teachers. It was always a discussion of how we could get the Premier and the Minister of Education to bring in legislation.
That is what this bill does tonight. They are not going to negotiate over the summer. I do not think the minister is so silly as to think the teachers and the board are going to sit down and truly negotiate over the next couple of months. If the minister believes that is going to happen, she is very naive.
Mr. Martel: They don't need the bill.
Mr. Cooke: That is right. If they are going to sit down and negotiate, then the bill should be withdrawn and they should negotiate without a gun at their heads. It worked in Windsor. It has worked in other areas in this province. There is absolutely no reason to bring in legislation. No jeopardy has been declared. With the teachers and the children on vacation, the minister brings in legislation ordering an end to a strike. It is absolutely ludicrous.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: The bargaining is also on vacation at the moment.
Mr. Cooke: The bargaining might be on vacation and it is going to stay on vacation because of this legislation. If the minister thinks they are going to go back and have serious negotiations, then she is out of her mind. She obviously does not understand what goes through trustees' minds and teachers' minds.
Why should anyone go to the bargaining table when this dispute is going to be settled in September with a form of arbitration which is ludicrous for the educational system? The final offer selection offers no sensitivity at all to the items in dispute in this particular teacher-board dispute.
I remember what the former Minister of Education said after Windsor had settled its three-year contract. It was about two years ago. I went over and talked to him. His comment to me was, "The Windsor settlement is a vindication of Bill 100." That is exactly what it was. A teacher-board relationship that was the stormiest and the rockiest of any in this province was settled because the minister had the intestinal fortitude and the guts to say that the board and the teachers had to negotiate and settle their own problems. As one member of this Legislature, I only wish this minister had the same guts.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly about the principles of this bill. I want to try to bring to the debate some slightly different perspectives. I do not support this kind of legislation basically because of the principle of the bill. I would not support it for hospital workers. I would not support it even for lawyers or for doctors or for any other workers in our society because it is basically an unfair piece of legislation.
9:50 p.m.
If the bill said, "Here is the settlement we are imposing," then I think that might be worth looking at. If the bill said to a school board, "This is the settlement we are imposing on your board," it would be worth looking at. I have seen this kind of legislation brought before the House on a few occasions and each time I find the bill by its very nature identifies the villains in the piece, according to the government. Each time I have seen this kind of legislation it identifies clearly that it is to force the teachers back to work.
It is not really legislation to force a settlement because a settlement is never a part of the package. Usually, as in this case, a mechanism is suggested that will produce some kind of a settlement. But the settlement is not there. So there is, in the principle of the bill, a basic unfairness. It identifies one party as being more guilty than the other. I do not believe that is really the intent on the part of the government. But I bet when we read the press reports tomorrow morning what they will say is that the government now has in its hot little hands a bill that will force the teachers back to work. That is clearly the intent that is understood; that is the intent that will be reported.
I want to speak also, because several members have, about the effect on the children. I would like to add a couple of different perspectives to this. Many people have spoken about the number of days lost and they keep going back to 18 months. But 18 months have not been lost. They have been spent perhaps in rather fruitless bargaining, but the strike has gone on for about 36 days.
Some members spoke at great length about damage to children. I am a father and an educator and I hate to break the news to the world, but those 36 days will be lost in every school year in every school in the province doing not really educationally profitable exercises. That is a fact of life in education, as it is in the factory and as it is in this Legislature, if one would care to examine how much profitable time in this session has been spent doing productive things, changing the world outside, making a real difference in our society. If we attempted to find in there 36 nonproductive days, I think I could find them. I think I could point out hours upon hours when we really did not do a whole lot for society.
That kind of time loss in any school is the same as in any factory or in this Legislature. It is part and parcel of the business. In fact, there are many educators, including members of the minister's staff, who are talking now about compressing a whole year into the school system, to have students take in 12 years what is now being taken in 13. There was a compressing of grades when many people like myself were going to school as well. A whole year was integrated into the system. I am one of those who did 13 years' education in 12. A whole year is missing there somewhere in theory, but in fact that never did occur.
There are many aspects to what this kind of legislation will do. There are two others I want to mention. One is in terms of the parliamentary process itself. This legislative approach really does stink. I cannot help but compare this bill with a few months ago under minority government. This government would never even have bothered to try to get this kind of open-ended legislation passed through this House. There would have been no sense in trying.
I think it is important for us at least to notice, as this bill goes through, that the government is loading up the shotgun. The government itself will decide when the bill will be implemented. It will decide whether or not to use it. I have heard many people say: "There are 60 bargaining days at work before any real crisis occurs. It may well be September before the legislation itself is utilized."
I think we should not run and hide from the realities. There is not going to be a lot of bargaining this summer in this dispute.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Why?
Mr. Breaugh: The minister may ask why. She can ask it now, she can ask it through July and she can ask it through August, but I will bet my bottom dollar not a great deal of serious bargaining will occur. From the board's point of view, there now is legislation in place which ensures that probably the most critical item on its agenda -- reopening of the schools -- will occur. From the teachers' point of view, their fate is almost sealed with this kind of legislation in the government's hands. So there is not a lot of use from that point in it from that point of view.
I am always amused when I look at the different approaches taken in different sectors to resolve a labour dispute. In the industrial sector, for example, where there is certainly inconvenience to the public because services are discontinued but the hard dollar is on the line, I have watched this government move its staff into a labour dispute that was much more bitter than this one, where much more acrimony had come out of it and where people were on the streets on picket lines, and not just as a teachers' picket line often is, a very genteel process, but pretty rough stuff out there.
I have seen where a ministry can find the staff, can find a hotel room somewhere in Toronto and can convene a meeting of both parties. They sometimes isolate them with a few blocks' difference between them, but they get a settlement. That is basically because, when they want a settlement, it is possible to make one happen. That is even when both parties involved in the dispute couldn't care less about a settlement. If this government chooses to make one happen, it will happen. In this instance, it could.
If this legislation were to look at the proposed settlement itself and put that in front of the House, if it were to look at a legislated settlement on the board's part, then perhaps we might say: "It is even. We have done some in the past which legislated the teachers back to work. This time we are going to legislate a board into a settlement." That would be unfair as well. It would have its ins and outs to it. The problem that is a basic one in all of this is that the government has got now in its hands a piece of legislation which it should not have under any circumstances.
In the course of this debate tonight there has been a little bit about the realities of the negotiations in this particular school board. In fact, the principle of the bill does not talk about the state of negotiations there. It talks about the powers which the government will have in its hands and may choose to exercise when it wants to. That, in parliamentary terms, is doing a disservice to this House.
In conclusion, I want to speak a little bit about the children who are involved and everybody else who is involved.
It is said in this circumstance that the only important thing is a settlement and somehow there is an impression left that no damage will occur if only a settlement could be reached. I want to put a point of view which says very clearly that the minister is damaging the lives of these children in this process. The minister is forming their attitude about government, teachers, school boards, adults and about the society in which they live, which is wrong, which is bad and which is harmful.
I can assure the minister that she is engendering a bad feeling among the teachers who will be affected by this -- a bad feeling about themselves, about the government and about their employers, the school board. I do not think the minister is doing a great deal for the school board either.
Other members have spoken just briefly about the intervention on a local matter of this kind and the bad feeling that stems from that. I really feel that this will leave with the teachers, board, parents and children a legacy which is wrong, which says that common rational problems cannot be worked out among adults and there was not a movement on the part of the government to seek that consensus, to make that negotiating process work.
I know it is a long and complicated piece of business. Having negotiated for teachers and with school boards, I know that it is often not like other sets of negotiations I have participated in. It is a slightly different kettle of fish, but I do believe that the current legislation governing teachers and their bargaining process is a reasonable one. It is a little fancy for my taste, but it is one which has pretty well stood the test of time. Each time the minister brings this kind of legislation forward, it does the original bargaining piece a disservice as well.
I believe that this legislation is not really proper in a parliamentary sense to be put before the House. I think it certainly very unusual to give to a minister or government of the day this kind of open-ended legislation. Later on, when they choose, they will fill in the blanks of how they go about it or when they might implement it. In our parliamentary traditions, that is wrong. I believe that the minister will not do very much for future sets of negotiations for this board or for any other board. In fact, I believe the minister will do the process some considerable damage.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the minister does a great disservice to the individuals who are involved and affected by this particular set of negotiations because what she is proposing as a solution here is no solution at all. It is a furtherance and a changing of the nature of the problem perhaps, but it does not do very much either to make the system work or to make the people who are part of the system feel that the system is fair to them. That is the basis of all sets of negotiations I have ever been involved in. At the end of the process no one ever really wins and no one ever really loses, but both sides feel that they have had a chance to participate and that they got some portion of the things they were looking for.
10 p.m.
Without going into the specifics of the negotiations here, I believe that in principle this type of legislation is wrong and that this particular bill does not deserve the support of the House. I ask all members to look at it in that light on the principle of the situation and make up their minds as individuals.
Mr. Speaker: Does any other honourable member wish to participate in this debate? If not, Miss Stephenson.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, so much has been made in this debate of one or two items that I would really like the opportunity to mention a little of the background related to it. The whole subject of class size seems to have stirred the imagination of the members of the Legislature. They really seem not to believe that there is a significant body of research in this area.
I refer the honourable members to the December 1980 issue of Kappan magazine, which has an excellent article in which those meta-analyses of Smith and Glass were reported, were rebutted once by the education research service group and rebutted a second time by the same group with such language as this:
"The fundamental question of scientific position regarding Glass's class size analyses rests not on whether there are mathematical curves that better fit his data, but on a more basic issue -- the imprecision of the data to which curves were fitted. Even if Glass's data classification procedures were accepted as valid, the bottom line is that only 14 studies, not 76, provided the data for his widely publicized graph and the conclusions drawn from it."
There is indeed a great deal of concern about class size. I would refer the honourable members to an excellent report carried within the National Educational Research Foundation's paper and written by Dr. Clare Burstall, who says:
"For more than eight decades, attempts have been made to establish whether a relationship exists between the size of a class in which children are taught and the quality of their attainments and behaviour. The outcomes of this extensive research effort are conflicting, inconclusive and disappointingly meagre. The accumulated evidence does not lend itself to easy summary and has been variously interpreted as indicating a need for larger classes, for smaller classes or simply for better research.
"This lack of clarity is in sharp contrast with the deeply held conviction of teachers and parents that smaller classes must inevitably bring about an improvement in the quality of life in the classroom with consequent beneficial effects on children's social, emotional and intellectual development."
Dr. Burstall goes on to say: "Most class size studies are also open to an even more serious criticism. They attempt to treat class size as a single isolated variable without taking into account the complex interplay of forces affecting classroom life. Powerful factors such as the motivation and abilities of the pupils, the skill and personality of the teacher, the nature of the curriculum, the organizational characteristics of the school, the available human and financial resources, the community in which the school is set, and so on, have been generally neglected in a concentration on class size...
"Interestingly enough in view of the earlier findings on pupil achievement, the majority of the teachers taking part in this study felt that the advantages offered by a small class were particularly marked for the less able child and the disadvantages of a larger class correspondingly great. This is not to suggest, of course, that a small class, however defined, is necessarily the best for all purposes. There is some evidence that a very small class can become a monotonous and unstimulating environment, and, as mentioned earlier, there has been very little investigation of the possibility that very large classes might prove a suitable setting for certain kinds of learning activities. Indeed, the concept of 'optimal' class size is probably not a helpful one. Size cannot be divorced from context: classes of different sizes may be equally effective for different purposes."
Dr. Clare Burstall is the associate director of the National Educational Research Foundation in Great Britain. The Educational Research Service is a very well-known and very worthy institution in the United States. All that I have tried to demonstrate is that there is no consensus about the matter of class size and there is certainly no consensus about whether it should be stabilized or established by the ministry or whether it should be a part of collective bargaining.
I do not know the answer to that but I do not think the teachers can have it both ways. I do not think we can have it established first in legislation and then have it become subject to collective bargaining as well. That is what I was trying to make clear in my remarks to a reporter who managed to get them garbled.
Mr. Cooke: So you support the board's position?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: No, I do not support the board's position. I was simply trying to present the facts, nothing more.
Mr. Martel: There are no facts.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is the question; there are no facts related to class size, so therefore they are going to negotiate on the basis of no facts.
The other matter that has seemed to raise so much ire among the members was this belief that the commission acted upon section 61(1)(h) in sending their report to me, which I received on June 12 although I gather it was written on June 11, and that this indeed was inappropriate because 61(1)(h) mentions jeopardy.
The commission did not file their report on June 11 on the basis of 61(1)(h). Indeed, the report makes it very clear that they could not establish jeopardy and therefore they were very careful not to use that section, but they did believe firmly that under section 61(l)(a) of the bill there is ample scope for the kind of report which was submitted to me on June 11.
Section 61(1)(a), I would remind members, suggests that the commission has a responsibility--
Mr. Grande: Where is that?
Mr. Martel: Where does it say that? I have the letter; show me.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: It is not in the letter. But have you read the letter carefully?
Interjections.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Oh, but it does.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the letter very specifically says: "At the same time we take seriously our duty under section 61(1)(h) of the act concerning jeopardy. While in our opinion there is an absence of compelling evidence that jeopardy exists at this precise point, we feel that the government should be in a position to respond without delay should it become clear to the ERC," and so on.
Then in the next paragraph it states very clearly that it is the intention of the commission to provide third-party assistance to the parties in Leeds and Grenville and to continue to monitor the situation and to ensure that there will be an examination of the course of study of the students at some point, at which time the minister will be given an advisement under which the minister may act.
Interjections.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: On the basis of a broadsheet which was distributed by the president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation which said that in his opinion there was no legal basis for the commission's action, we did ask for a legal opinion about this and we have received legal opinion. It is the legal opinion that the commission did act correctly and properly under the terms of 61(1)(a) of Bill 100 which provides ample scope for reports such as that filed on June 11.
Rather than infringing upon the rights of the parties, I believe the commission strongly supports the idea that the introduction of legislation such as this will encourage the parties to continue meaningful negotiation, a matter which has not occurred with any great regularity in the past several months. It does not mean an end to the strike in Leeds-Grenville. In fact, the legislation will not be proclaimed until an advisement under 61(h) of Bill 100 is received by the minister from the commission.
It should be emphasized that the commission has made no determination at this point as to when that advisement will be made, but the commission's concern about the spanning of two school years by one single strike was of sufficient strength to encourage it to write the report to me and to suggest strongly that I consider the introduction of such legislation. Under Bill 100, the Education Relations Commission has a duty at all times to consider the impact of a strike or a lockout on the students' courses of study, as well as to consider the rights of the parties.
In this situation in Leeds and Grenville, I believe the commission's position is consistent with its desires for a voluntary dispute resolution. That has always been their strong position and one they have encouraged me to attempt to support as well. I think the neutrality and the independence of the commission are very well established and are not in any way jeopardized by the legislation they have suggested.
One of the real difficulties under Bill 100 is the fact the parties to negotiation do not seem to have recognized their responsibilities quite as clearly as they have recognized the rights they have been granted under the legislation. In almost all of the instances, and there have been about 12 per year in the last five years -- the member for Kitchener-Wilmot might like to know -- in which there has been protracted negotiations which did not result in strikes, but in many of the instances --
Interjection.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: More than 12 months.
Interjection.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am sorry, I did not hear the member say years.
Mr. Speaker, in those few instances in which the dispute has disrupted the school program, it has become very obvious that there has been less than total concern or less than apparent total concern on the part of both parties for the welfare of the innocent third parties in this set of negotiations. I think it was because of real concerns for the security and the stability of the educational program for the young people in Leeds-Grenville that the Education Relations Commission was moved to make a unique suggestion in this rather difficult situation, in order to ensure that there would be a program of education that those children would know they would be going back to at some point early in the fall of 1981.
I would urge all honourable members to consider most seriously supporting this bill on behalf of the children in Leeds-Grenville and on behalf of vigorous stimulation of continued collective negotiations in that area in the sincere hope that the bill will never have to be proclaimed. That is my objective. I hope it will be the objective of all members of the House and all members of the negotiations.
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
10:20 p.m.
The House divided on Hon. Miss Stephenson's motion, which was agreed to on the following vote:
Ayes
Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Birch, Boudria, Brandt, Conway, Copps, Cousens, Cunningham, Cureatz, Dean, Eakins, Eaton, Edighoffer, Elgie, Elston, Fish, Gregory, Grossman, Haggerty, Havrot, Henderson, Hennessy, Johnson, J. M., Jones, Kerrio, Kolyn, Lane, Leluk, McCaffrey, McCague, McGuigan, McLean, McNeil, Miller, F. S.;
Newman, Nixon, Norton, Piché, Pollock, Pope, Ramsay, Reid, T. P., Riddell, Robinson, Runciman, Ruston, Sheppard, Shymko, Snow, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Sweeney, Taylor, G. W., Taylor, J. A., Timbrell, Treleaven, Van Horne, Villeneuve, Walker, Watson, Welch, Wells, Williams, Wiseman, Worton, Wrye, Yakabuski.
Nays
Breaugh, Cooke, Gordon, Grande, Martel, Philip, Renwick, Samis, Swart.
Ayes 71; nays 9.
Ordered for committee of the whole House.
House in committee of the whole.
LEEDS AND GRENVILLE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTE ACT
Consideration of Bill 124, An Act respecting the Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education and Teachers Dispute.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
On section 3:
Mr. Chairman: Mr. Sweeney moves an amendment to section 3(1)(a): in line four after the word "to" add "an arbitrator or" and in line five after the word "with" add "part IV or."
Mr. Sweeney: The purpose of this amendment is to provide the board and the teachers with the opportunity to use either a final-offer selector or an arbitrator.
Interjections.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Chairman, this amendment is an attempt by the Liberals to try to save some face and this party will not even dignify that party by an acknowledgement of this amendment to a bad bill.
10:30 p.m.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of introducing the single concept of the selector for final-offer selection was to provide some stimulus and encouragement to the Leeds and Grenville County Board of Education to pursue collective bargaining vigorously this summer. The concept of arbitration as we usually understand it is not a measure which provides much in the way of pressure for boards of education to continue with the negotiating process.
The lack of enthusiasm by the board for final-offer selection we believe is an appropriate means to stimulate that board to move in the direction of really continuing negotiations in the hope we will never have to proclaim the bill.
Mr. Chairman: Those in favour of Mr. Sweeney's amendment will please say "aye."
Those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion the nays have it.
Motion negatived.
Section 3 agreed to.
On section 4:
Mr. Chairman: Mr. Sweeney moves that section 4(1) be amended deleting "1983" after "August" in line 6 and replacing it with "1982."
Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Chairman, I indicated in my opening remarks that I felt this particular negotiation had gone on a long time. I indicated there were some difficult and bitter feelings between the parties and that there should be some opportunity for them, as soon as reasonably possible, to meet again and try to resolve their differences on their own.
It has been made fairly clear to me by one side at least that they rather resent having a three-year settlement imposed upon them and this would be one way of blunting that resentment to some extent.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Chairman, as we said on second reading, it is clearly unusual that for the first time one has a three-year contract being imposed. However, the fact is that the comments I made on the first amendment the Liberals put forward are exactly the same for their putting forward this amendment to try to minimize the shame of having voted for this legislation.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the three-year term for this agreement was to ensure there would be a reasonable period of time during which activity in the area of preventive mediation could take place which would be instituted by the Education Relations Commission and which would have an opportunity to improve the somewhat strained relationship which has been in existence in that area for some time. I would hope the members would see fit to permit that term of contract to remain within the legislation.
Mr. Chairman: Those in favour of Mr. Sweeney's amendment to section 4(1) will please say "aye."
Those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion the nays have it.
Motion negatived.
Section 4 agreed to.
Sections 5 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.
Bill 124 reported.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the committee of the whole House reported one bill without amendent.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment of the House, I thought I might indicate the business for tomorrow. The House will meet at its usual time of 10 o'clock with a question period. Immediately following that, we will proceed with the legislation on the Order Paper, which is first the committee of the whole House on Bill 113, followed by second reading of Bill 68.
I would also indicate that, with the concurrence of the House, I think it would be appropriate if we adjourned between 12 o'clock and one o'clock while Her Majesty the Queen Mother will be visiting in front of the Legislative Building and being officially received and welcomed to Ontario. It will give all the members an opportunity to go down to the front steps and observe the official ceremony, since this will be the official welcome to the province.
I understand we have agreement, and I will make the appropriate motion tomorrow, to continue sitting beyond one o'clock in the likelihood that we may be able to complete the business of this Legislature and proceed to a summer adjournment.
The House adjourned at 10:37 p.m.